An Apple

He had read descriptions of Su Yu in the newspaper before, but those had only been words on paper. He had never experienced it for himself.

Just now, however, Blackbeard had personally learned what fucking despair felt like!

Su Yu had merely coughed softly. He had made no unusual move, and the Observation Haki Blackbeard had deliberately kept extended hadn't detected a damn thing. Yet his Devil Fruit power had simply stopped working, as though out of nowhere. It wasn't even the same feeling as Seastone. It felt as if his power had been sealed away outright, as if he had never eaten the Dark-Dark Fruit at all!

Was that even something a fucking Devil Fruit could do?

Without experiencing what had just happened firsthand, no one could possibly understand Blackbeard's despair. It was a helpless despair that welled up from deep within, like being a patient under general anesthesia, strapped to an operating table, facing a doctor with a scalpel in hand...

From beginning to end, Su Yu's expression hadn't changed in the slightest, nor had he given off any unusual aura. He had simply cleared his throat as casually as an ordinary person, without the slightest hint of menace. Yet the back of Blackbeard's shirt was already soaked with cold sweat.

At that moment, he had completely lost the courage to face Su Yu.

He could only say he had come for a drink. If his true intentions were exposed, he might never make it out of this bar...

Hearing Blackbeard's answer, Su Yu nodded without giving it much thought. He called Miland downstairs to serve their guest, then took Marco up to the second floor.

Trembling with fear, Blackbeard ordered a drink and drained it in one gulp.

"Zehahahaha! Now that's good booze! It's got a real kick!"

The liquor was indeed strong. Normally, Blackbeard might have savored it and drunk his fill, but today, he wasn't in the mood to drink at all.

All he wanted was to hurry out of this bar and leave this island. But he had already said he had come to drink. He couldn't very well leave after just one glass.

So Blackbeard ordered a few more drinks and endured the agony of gulping them down before finally paying and turning to leave.

Once he had walked out of the bar at a deliberately unhurried pace, Blackbeard sprinted toward the coast where he had moored his ship as fast as he could, as though something terrifying were chasing him.

He felt that he had completely underestimated Su Yu's strength. This was what it truly meant to be invincible!

For one brief moment, Blackbeard even wanted to give up. But in the next, his ambition and desire seized his heart again.

Blackbeard knew that human strength alone might never be enough to contend with Su Yu. If a man couldn't do it, then he would seek some other power!

He knew a few secrets. Supposedly, three terrifying ancient weapons had existed throughout history: Uranus, the King of the Sky; Poseidon, the King of the Sea; and Pluton, the King of the Underworld!

He had found no information about what Uranus was. He only knew that such a thing existed. As for what it actually was, what it looked like, or where it was, he knew nothing.

Poseidon, meanwhile, was supposedly a Mermaid Princess. She was the ruler of all Sea Kings, capable of communicating directly with them and controlling them. Just because someone with a Vice Admiral's strength could kill a Sea King in an instant didn't mean Sea Kings were weak. Those that were killed so easily were almost all insignificant specimens among their kind. Sea Kings could reach or even exceed five thousand meters in size, making them like small islands. A casual movement of their bodies would turn them into moving natural disasters!

And that wasn't even counting the larger ones. A Sea King's size determined its strength. The bigger it was, the greater its power and the tougher its defenses. And one mustn't forget that Poseidon could control every Sea King. Someone might be able to deal with one, but what about a hundred, or even a thousand island-sized Sea Kings? At that point, they could bore straight through even the Red Line!

As for Pluton, it was said to be the most fearsome battleship in shipbuilding history, capable of destroying an island with a single shot! The location where this battleship lay hidden was recorded on a Poneglyph.

And Pluton was Blackbeard's new objective!

Su Yu had truly left him with no other options, forcing him to turn to outside power.

But for the sake of his ambition, Blackbeard decided to take another gamble!

Of course, he hadn't abandoned his original objective either. If he could achieve it, that would naturally be ideal. It was, in fact, an obsession lodged deep in his heart. How could he simply abandon it...

Inside the bar, Su Yu and Marco went up to the second floor.

By then, Marco had recovered from his fright, but fear still lingered in his eyes whenever he looked at Su Yu, and he remained somewhat reserved around him.

"So, Commander Marco, what will you choose? Do you just want Whitebeard freed from the suffering of his illness, or do you want him restored directly to his prime?"

Marco chose the second option without hesitation.

"Hmm, restoring him to his prime. The price will be ten Devil Fruits, at least two of which must be Logia."

As he spoke, Su Yu casually picked up an apple from the table, then held his other hand palm-up with his fingers curled. Marco watched as countless specks of green light seemed to emerge from thin air, slowly gathering in Su Yu's palm. A small green orb of light appeared there, its color soft and gentle. As more glowing specks gathered, the orb grew ever deeper in hue.

At that moment, the seemingly endless glow bathed the room around them in green.

Marco, who wielded the life-giving Phoenix Flames himself, could clearly sense that although the orb wasn't particularly dazzling, it contained an astonishing amount of vitality!

The wondrous sight left Marco deeply shocked. What shocked him even more was that he could feel his own physical condition steadily improving. It was as though he had been carrying a weighted pack that had suddenly vanished, leaving his body wonderfully relaxed and refreshed! Even his breathing seemed to become easier!

That miraculous power made Marco believe Su Yu's words completely. At the thought that Pops could regain his health and return to his prime, the gloom from his encounter with Blackbeard vanished in an instant, and his spirits soared.

A short while later, the gathering finally seemed complete. No new specks of light appeared, and the room dimmed. The green orb in Su Yu's palm now shone as brilliantly as a diamond, yet at the same time, it seemed as deep as an abyss. Those two entirely contradictory impressions existed together within that single orb.

Su Yu lightly bounced the orb in his palm, then brought his hands together and pressed the green light into the apple. The apple flashed for an instant, illuminating the entire room, then dimmed again until it looked just like an ordinary apple.

The apple was merely a vessel. If Su Yu hadn't put the light inside it, Marco would have absorbed the orb the moment he touched it and would never have been able to bring it to Whitebeard.